This article is from page 67 of the 2008-01-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 67 JPG
TWO Aer Lingus jets were ground- ed for a short time on Saturday after they were both struck by lightning shortly before they landed at Shan- non Airport.
The Airbus A330-300 aircraft were operating scheduled services be- tween the United States and Ireland when they encountered bad weather about 30 miles west of Shannon.
The planes were struck by light- ning, with both sustaining damage to their nose-cones. Thunder and lightning storms were reported over a wide area of the west coast on Sat- urday morning, as well as inland in many parts of Clare.
The flights were the EI-132 from Boston and the EIJ-110 from New York JFK which landed at Shannon at 5.45am and 6.10am respectively. Neither plane declared an emergen- cy, and it is believed that most pas- sengers were unaware of the strike.
After landing at Shannon, the pas- sengers disembarked normally while the aircraft were taken to the air- line’s own hangar where engineers carried out a detail examination of all electrical systems and a visual inspection of the exteriors.
A small hole was discovered in the nose-cone of one jet, but its electri- cal systems were not damaged.
The hole was repaired before both
planes were allowed continue their journeys. The second jet also sus- tained damage to its nose and some scorching on the fuselage.
As aresult of the incidents, neither aircraft was able to continue onto the Dublin leg of their journey.
An extra aircraft was provided to take passengers from Shannon to Dublin. Others due to travel from Dublin to Boston and New York were flown to Shannon to join their flight at that airport.
Both aircraft were allowed return to service on Saturday evening.
The Boston flight continued its journey at 5.45pm more than four hours behind schedule while the New York service, which was due to depart at 2pm, left Shannon at ope LO} oyeek
Itis widely believed that most large commercial aircraft are struck by lightning at least once a year.
Although passengers and crew may see a flash and hear a loud noise, nothing serious should happen be- cause of the careful lightning pro- tection engineered into aircraft and their sensitive components.
Initially, the lightning will attach to an extremity, such as the nose or wing tip before travelling through the conductive exterior skin and structures of the aircraft and exit off some other extremity, such as the ene